‘Turkey must drop Pamuk charges’: book trade
Expatica, Netherlands
Sept 2 2005
2 September 2005
FRANKFURT – Germany’s book trade, which is to hand its most prestigious
annual award, the Peace Prize, to Orhan Pamuk next month, called
Friday on Istanbul prosecutors to abandon charges against the author
of denigrating Turkey.
It was reported on Wednesday that the novelist is to go on trial on
December 16 for saying, “Thirty thousand Kurds and 1 million Armenians
were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it.”
Turkey denies that a genocide of Armenians took place during World
War One and claims that the numbers of people who died were much
lower than the 1.5 million figure that is often cited.
Dieter Schormann, chairman of the Boersenverein,
the group representing both publishers and booksellers in Germany,
said, “We protest. We demand the Turkish state ceases proceedings
against Orhan Pamuk.
“The freedom of the word is one of the fundamental values of a
democratic society.”
The German Book Trade Peace Prize council also criticized the
prosecution Friday. Pamuk is set to receive the prize, worth EUR
25,000, on October 23 in a ceremony attended by German leaders in
the Church of St. Paul in Frankfurt.
While Pamuk did not actually use the word genocide, his acknowledgement
that 1 million Armenians were killed was enough to raise the ire of
extreme nationalists in Turkey who called for his books to be banned.
Pamuk’s books include “My Name is Red” and “Snow”. The latter was
named in the New York Times Top 10 books for 2004. His books have
been translated into 34 languages.

Azerbaijan: From Showmanship To Brinkmanship
By Liz Fuller
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, Czech Rep.
Sept 2 2005
In the run-up to the parliamentary elections scheduled for 6 November,
Azerbaijani leaders face an unenviable dilemma.
On the one hand, they are under pressure from the Council of Europe,
the OSCE, and the United States to avoid the egregious violations
and outright falsification that marred the elections of 1995, 1998,
2000, and 2003 and to deliver on their repeated pledges that this
time around the vote will be transparent, free, and fair. And, on the
other hand, they need to secure a comfortable parliamentary majority
for the ruling Yeni Azerbaycan Party without sparking postelections
protests on the lines of those that over the past two years have
toppled entrenched regimes in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. The
tactics and strategy selected to achieve that objective appear to
contain elements of both showmanship and brinkmanship.
Showmanship
On 11 May, President Ilham Aliyev issued a decree outlining measures to
improve the conduct of elections. The preamble to that decree admitted
that contrary to the “political will” of the Azerbaijani authorities,
previous elections were marred by “illegalities,” but it blamed those
irregularities on the “lack of professionalism” and “post-Soviet
mentality” of individual local officials and election commission
members. (No effort has been made over the past two years to identify
the individuals responsible for those “irregularities” and bring them
to justice.) The first of 11 measures listed in President Aliyev’s
decree and intended to prevent a recurrence of procedural violations
entailed programs to raise the professionalism and competence of the
officials responsible for the organization of the election process
and the vote count; the second was a warning to those officials
that they will be held legally responsible for any infringements
of the Election Law, such as hampering electioneering by opposition
candidates or intervening in the voting process or vote count. The
Azerbaijani leadership is thus apparently seeking to offload in advance
the blame for possible violations on to regional officials, who will
have to calculate which offense will be perceived as greater: failing
to ensure at all costs the victory of the ruling party’s candidate,
or risking their superiors’ opprobrium should international observers
register and publicly condemn malpractice in voting stations under
their jurisdiction.The final list of candidates is to be announced on
7 September, and manifestations of both brinkmanship and “black PR”
are likely to multiply in the two months remaining before the election.
A third provision of President Aliyev’s decree, ostensibly intended to
contribute to the fairness of the election process, is the provision
for the conduct of exit polls. Paradoxically, however, this provision
could have the opposite effect if voters in rural areas, fearful of
the wrath of the local authorities, claim to have voted for the YAP
candidate when in fact they cast their votes for a member of the
opposition. A glaring discrepancy between the actual division of
ballots cast and the exit-poll results could impel local election
commission members to bring the “official” tally into line with the
inaccurate exit-poll data.
Further aspects of the election campaign to date that could be
construed as manifestations of showmanship include the lifting of
long-standing restrictions on holding opposition demonstrations in
Baku; registration of several controversial opposition candidates,
first and foremost former parliamentary speaker Rasul Guliev; the
MSK’s 12 August appeal to the Armenian population of the breakaway
unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic to register to elect a candidate
to represent the enclave in the next Azerbaijani parliament; and
the belated launch, on 29 August, of a nominally independent public
television station whose mandate requires it to provide equal access
to both pro-government and opposition parliamentary candidates. On
the same day as the MSK announced Guliev’s registration, the office of
Azerbaijan’s prosecutor-general declared that it has stripped Guliev
of his immunity from prosecution. Should he return to Baku from the
United States, as he has pledged to do, he consequently risks arrest
on charges of large-scale embezzlement.
Following the 11 May presidential decree, in late June, under pressure
from the international community, Azerbaijan’s parliament adopted
43 amendments proposed by President Aliyev to the existing election
law. Those amendments did not, however, include the most important
changes called for by the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission, nor
did they increase opposition representation on election commissions at
all levels, as the opposition had demanded. (The opposition demanded
equal representation on election commissions, which the authorities
rejected, accusing the opposition of thus seeking to prevent such
commissions from adopting any decisions. Presidential-administration
head Ramiiz Mekhtiev told day.az on 23 July that the opposition’s
objective in demanding equal representation was the desire to be in a
position to paralyze the functioning of election commissions and thus
sabotage the entire election process. The Council of Europe called
for appointing an additional opposition representative to the MSK to
give a total of seven opposition and nine pro-government members.)
..And Brinkmanship .
The presidential administration appears to regard the combined
provisions of the presidential decree and the amended election
law as a panacea against election fraud — provided lower-level
bureaucrats abide by its provisions. Proceeding from that conviction,
the Azerbaijani leadership has apparently switched from showmanship
to brinkmanship, arguing that additional measures to preclude fraud
are unnecessary. For example, Ali Hasanov, who heads the political
department within the presidential administration, told day.az on
1 September that the authorities do not consider it necessary to
accede to the proposal, made most recently during a visit to Baku
late last month by Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(PACE) Chairman Rene van der Linden, to mark voters’ fingers with
indelible ink to prevent multiple voting.
Further, uglier manifestations of brinkmanship include the recourse
for the first time in an Azerbaijani election to “doubles,” meaning
the nomination in a given constituency of additional candidates
with the same name as a prominent oppositionist. The first target
for such confusion is former presidential adviser Edar Namazov,
one of the leaders of the opposition alliance Yeni Siyaset, who will
compete against two namesakes in a Baku constituency. The questionable
allegations of collusion with Armenian special services brought by
the Prosecutor-General’s Office against Ruslan Bashirli, chairman
of the opposition youth movement Yeni Fikir, fall into the same
category. Allegations of treason by association were subsequently
brought against Bashirli’s mentor Ali Kerimli, chairman of the
progressive wing of Azerbaijan Popular Front Party, one of three
opposition parties aligned in the Azadlyg bloc. Some observers
have construed the vilification campaign launched against Kerimli
as an attempt to split Azadlyg by creating the impression that the
authorities consider Kerimli, rather than fellow Azadlyg leader and
Musavat party Chairman Isa Gambar (who lost to President Aliyev in the
October 2003 presidential ballot), as the most popular and influential
candidate, and by extension as a threat to be neutralized.
The final list of candidates is to be announced on 7 September;
manifestations of both brinkmanship and “black PR” are likely to
multiply in the two months remaining before the election.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Feature: Mad about Turkey
by GARETH HARDING
UPI – United Press International (USA)
September 1, 2005 Thursday 11:45 AM EST
BRUSSELS, Sept. 1 — Brussels, the self-styled capital of the European
Union, is a consensual sort of place, where believers in the EU project
far outnumber doubters, and polite debate is preferred to heated
argument. But when it comes to the pros and cons of Turkey’s membership
of the Union, the gloves come off and etiquette flies out the window —
as a demonstration against Ankara’s EU bid proved earlier this week.
On a leafy square wedged between the European Parliament and the
Council of Ministers in the EU quarter of the city, several dozen young
activists from the “Voice for Europe” campaign handed out leaflets
against Turkish membership of the 25-member bloc to bemused motorists,
tourists and passers-by. They held up banners proclaiming “55 percent
vs. 35 percent: can’t you count” — a reference to a recent European
Commission opinion poll showing a majority of Europeans against Turkish
membership, let off balloons with the slogan “Turkey is not in Europe,”
and set up a huge clock with the hand standing motionless at 5 minutes
to noon. The message? Even at this late stage — accession talks with
the predominantly Muslim state are due to begin in Brussels in one
month — the decision by EU leaders to open membership negotiations
with Ankara can be reversed.
It is difficult to get worked up about draft directives and
parliamentary amendments — the usual Brussels fodder — but the
question of whether Turkey should be admitted into the EU in the
latter half of the next decade unleashes powerful emotions.
When Boris Blauth, the German coordinator of the Voice for Europe
campaign, tells United Press International that Turkish immigrants
commit “far more crimes” than locals, a Belgian journalist of Turkish
origin retorts: “Turks don’t have a chance to integrate. They are
put in a ghetto and left to their own devices.” To illustrate his
point, the photo-journalist tells the story of a date he once had in
Brussels. “After two hours talking in a bar, I told the girl my name
and she spat in my face and left.”
A hot-headed Armenian demonstrator has little sympathy for the
reporter’s romantic woes or arguments in favor of Turkish entry. “You
shouldn’t be a journalist. You should be a clown,” he says, to which
the reporter replies: “Go forth and multiply” — but not quite in
those words.
It is easy to see why Turkish membership of the EU, which is the
main topic on the table of a meeting of European foreign ministers
in Wales Friday, sparks such violent reactions.
If Turkey joined the EU in 2015, it would become its most populous
state within a decade due to strong population growth in the
predominantly Muslim republic and low fertility rates in the Union.
As population size largely determines voting power in the EU, it would
leapfrog Germany to become the state with the greatest political clout.
Turkey is considerably poorer than EU states, with a per capita gross
domestic product equal to a quarter the EU average.
“Unemployed manpower will stream into European territories, which
will result in tensions both on the labor force market and on the
level of society,” says a pamphlet distributed by Voice for Europe.
Blauth’s main concern is that Turkish values, which he describes as
in the “Asian, Islamic tradition,” are different from European secular
values such as equality between men and women and freedom to practice
one’s religion. “Let them have their culture and let us have ours,”
says the German.
Opponents of Turkey’s membership of the EU vigorously deny they are
racist or xenophobic, but there is more than a hint of Islamophobia
in some of the arguments they put forward.
“A Muslim state cannot join the European Union,” says Mogens Camre,
a Danish Euro-skeptic member of the European Parliament who took
time out to meet the campaigners Monday. “You can believe in any
God you like, but the Islamic religion is not about democracy. The
Arab world rejects modern society and we don’t want their fingers
on our buttons in Europe. We’ve only been able to develop the way we
have because we are a homogenized society. If the Muslims took over,
Denmark would be a desert.”
These arguments may be crude and pander to the public’s basest fears
about a clash of civilizations between Christian Europe and Muslim
Turkey, but they are widely held in the EU. In a recent commission
poll, three-quarters of Germans and 70 percent of French respondents
came out against Turkish accession, with over half of those interviewed
opposing Ankara’s entry into the 25-member club.
Since it was founded in May, Voice for Europe has collected over
26,000 signatures for its petition against Turkish membership and
has brought its message to Budapest, Copenhagen, Athens, Warsaw,
Prague and other European capitals.
“We have had a very good response on the streets,” says Blauth. “Even
Turkish women in hijabs (headscarves) have signed our petition.”
Despite the muscular campaigning against Turkey’s membership bid by
groups like Voice for Europe and the last-minute doubts expressed by
senior members of the French, Austrian, Greek and Cypriot governments,
membership talks with Ankara are still likely to kick off as planned
on Oct. 3 — over 40 years after Turkey first filed its application
to join. But the public debate about whether to admit the large,
powerful and populous nation on Europe’s eastern fringes is likely
to run and run.

ROBERT KOCHARYAN: NKR IS ABLE TO BE INDEPENDENT
DeFacto.am, Armenia
Sept 2 2005
“I have not given rise to think that our stand in Karabakh settlement
issue has become changed”.
Today RA President Robert Kocharyan who arrived in Nagorno Karabakh
to take part in the activities devoted to the 14th Anniversary of
Proclamation of Nagorno Karabakh Republic has informed journalists
of the fact.
According to RA President, “our stand has not been changed, and the 14
years have testified to the NKR viability. It is able to have its own
statehood”. Robert Kocharyan stressed that Nagorno Karabakh Republic
could serve as an example for some post – Soviet Republics.
“Nagorno Karabakh cannot be subject to bargaining, and people of
Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh are unanimous in the opinion”, said
President of Armenia.
Touching upon Armenian and Azeri Presidents’ meeting in Kazan Robert
Kocharyan noted it had been favorable. “The negotiation process has
some positive tendencies”, emphasized he.
RA President said Nagorno Karabakh took part in the talks indirectly.
Robert Kocharyan stated after the meetings referring to the settlement
he informed the NKR President of the outcomes.
NKR President Arkady Ghoukasyan refused to make comments on the
settlement process referring to its confidentiality. “I guess it is
not time to throw light on all the particulars of the talks, however,
I believe everything is all right, and Nagorno Karabakh need not
worry”, said NKR President.

ROBERT KOCHARYAN: NAGORNO KARABAKH PEOPLE~RS CHOICE IS NOT SUBJECT TO CASSATION
DeFacto.am, Armenia
Sept 2 2005
RA President Robert Kocharyan circulated a message in connection with
the 14th Anniversary of NKR independence.
The message runs in particular: “We celebrate the 14th Anniversary
of independence of Artsakh reaffirming our commitment to the ideas
of freedom and democracy.
Historic choice made by the people of Artsakh is irrevocable. This
is proved by the strengthening of its army, state structures, and
economic progress and, overall, by the very existence of the Nagorno
Karabakh Republic.
The Republic of Armenia is and will always be the unshakable safe
guarder of Artsakh. We will do our best to bring closer a fair
resolution of the NK problem, remaining committed to the principles
of the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh issue”, runs the
RA President’s message.

Romance and realism in Brassai’s Paris pictures
By Robert Reed / Special to The Daily Yomiuri
The Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo)
September 1, 2005 Thursday
The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Ebisu is celebrating
its 10th year with a schedule of special exhibitions that reflect
its character as an institution dedicated to building and educating
an audience for the art of photography. After a series of three
exhibitions covering the history of photography in Japan up through
World War II, the museum now presents a show of the works of Brassai,
one of Europe’s best-known photographers of the 20th century.
This show is exemplary of the kind of high-quality presentations of
foreign artists the museum has sought to bring its audience over the
last 10 years and, in fact, is one that was assembled by the Pompidou
Centre, Paris, in 2000, to celebrate the centenary of the artist’s
birth and that has since toured to Britain and Italy.
Brassai is known today primarily as a photographer of the streets
and cafes of Paris at the time between the two world wars when the
city was the artistic capital of Europe. Like so many of the artists,
writers and thinkers gathered in Paris at that time, Brassai was not
a native Parisian but an expatriate drawn to the City of Light by
its irresistible intellectual and artistic gravity.
Born Gyula Halasz, the pseudonym Brassai that he chose after beginning
his artistic activities in Paris in the early 1930s means “of Brasso”
(Brasov), his native town in what was Hungarian Transylvania (now
part of Romania). His mother was Armenian and his father a Hungarian
professor of French literature with a degree from the Sorbonne. After
studying art in Budapest and Berlin, Brassai finally realized his
dream of living in Paris at the age of 25, in 1924.
During his first years in Paris, Brassai supported himself by writing
as a correspondent for Hungarian and German publications while devoting
himself to the study of French. In Berlin, he had counted artists
such as Kandinsky, Kokoschka and Moholy-Nagy among his friends,
and after moving to Paris he was again quick to make friends in art
circles. One of the first of these was the photographer Eugene Atget,
whose works Brassai came to admire deeply.
It was in 1929 that a friend lent Brassai a camera so that he could
take his own pictures to send back with his articles to Hungary and
Germany rather than having to rely on other photographer’s pictures.
As soon as he began to take and develop pictures, Brassai decided that
photography was a medium through which he could express his view of
the world.
In Brassai’s first serious portraits of Paris, beginning in 1930,
what we see is not the City of Light but the empty streets of the
Parisian night that he loved to wander. The collection of photographs
published late in 1932 under the title Paris du nuit (and in the
English edition as Paris After Dark in 1934) quickly caught the
attention of the Paris art world.
In the selection of works from this period on view in the Ebisu show,
we see the deserted night streets, peopled only occasionally by young
hoodlums from the slums and prostitutes on the Place d’Italie. In
these early years Brassai also photographed the nightlife of Paris,
in the cafes and bars, the dance halls and the brothels.
If the images appear stark it is because Brassai sought unadorned
reality above all else. If they seem unfinished it is because, like
that first camera that started him on his quest, Brassai always tried
to keep the spirit of the amateur, using no special equipment and
developing no new techniques.
In keeping with this stance, he also fervently denied the label of
artist throughout his career. The ground he broke was not in the
realm of technique or style but in the new subject matter he found
and the intimate knowledge of the fellow artists he photographed in
their studios. Brassai considered Goethe to be his true mentor and
he adopted the philosopher’s aphorism as his own: “Little by little,
objects have raised me to their own level.”
There is a striking photograph in this show titled A Subway Pillar
that exemplifies a series of photographs in which Brassai sought to
express the nobility of ordinary objects. He called this series Objets
a Grandes Echelles (Large-scale Objects) and it was these images that
caught the eye of Picasso and made him ask Brassai to photograph the
large stock of sculptures he had not yet shown the public.
Later, Brassai would be invited to the studios of many artists and
writers of the day, including Matisse, Giacometti, Pierre Bonnard,
George Braque, Georges Rouault, Bernard Buffet, Aristide Maillol,
Samuel Beckett, Thomas Mann and Olivier Messiaen. Particularly
memorable was a 1939 pictorial feature in Life magazine titled
“Picasso in his Studio.”
But this is not the side of Brassai’s career that the Ebisu show
focuses on. The Pompidou Centre collection from which his show is
compiled includes the vast archive of the Brassai estate and the
artist’s personal collection that his widow, Gilberte, donated to the
museum. From this, the show seeks to present the full spectrum of
Brassai’s own creative genius rather than his perhaps more visible
role as chronicler of the Paris art world. Thus, the show includes
Brassai drawings and sculpture as well as photographs.
As an art student, Brassai had naturally studied drawing, and he would
return to drawing as a medium of artistic expression in his 40s, partly
out of necessity. In the fateful month of June 1940, when the German
Army occupied Paris, Brassai was in Cannes, having fled before the
invasion with many of his artist friends. Although he had an invitation
to move to the United States, he boarded the last refugee train back
to Paris because he had forgotten to bring along his negatives.
Back in Paris, Brassai was told by the German occupation authority
to apply for a license to practice his profession as a photographer.
When he refused to do so, he was forbidden to work as a photographer
for the remainder of the war. This is when he returned to drawing and
made it a medium that he would continue to work in for the rest of
his life. This is also the period when Picasso asked him to photograph
his sculptures.
After the war, Brassai began making sculptures of his own, from the
stones he found during his frequent alpine treks in the French Alps.
Many of these charming works are stylized nudes that parallel his work
in drawing and photography–also on display in this show. Other works
seem to reflect the primitivism that had captured the imagination of
Picasso and many other artists of the day. And one humorous sculpture
is a Picassoesque bust in miniature of Picasso himself.
Another part of this show that is sure to impress visitors is the
selection of prints from Brassai’s Graffiti series, a collection
of photos of Paris wall graffiti that the artist sought out and
photographed over a period of more than 30 years. These images created
a sensation in New York when they were first shown together at the
Museum of Modern Art in a show organized by American photographer
Edward Steichen.
The reception was equally fervent in Europe when Brassai’s Graffiti
books were published in Germany and France. By this time, artists
like Picasso, Braque, Miro and Dubuffet were already avid collectors
of these prints, some of which came in pairs with a 10-year interval
between them to show how the graffiti had aged over the years. In
this show, these haunting images are grouped under Brassai’s original
themes of Love, Death, Magic and the Primitive.
Brassai–From the Pompidou Centre Collection
Until Sept. 25, open daily 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (until 8 p.m. on Thursdays
and Fridays). Closed Mondays except Sept. 19, when the museum closes
the following day instead.
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, a seven-minute walk from
JR Ebisu Station.
Admission: 1,000 yen for adults, 900 yen for university students and
800 yen for high school and middle school students and seniors 65
and older.
Information: visit or call (03) 3280-0099.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Washington Daybook
September 1, 2005
ORGANIZATION: Armenian Youth Foundation holds a rally to expose and
counter Azerbaijan’s plan to intimidate Karabagh’s Armenian
inhabitants into relinquishing their right to self-rule, while the
most senior officials in Baku repeatedly threaten to take Karabagh by
military force.
TIME: 3 p.m.
LOCATION: Azerbaijan Embassy, 2741 34th Street NW, Washington, D.C.
CONTACT: 617-923-1933, [email protected];
TYPE: Rally
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenia Now, Armenia
September 3, 2005
Baltic “yans”: A visit with the Armenians of Latvia
By Suren Musayelyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
Editor’s Note: Staff writer Suren Musayelyan recently visited relatives
in Latvia, where he found a small, but vibrant community of Armenians
. . .
“Ani”, “Ararat”, “Artsakh”, “Erebuni”, “Kert”, the names of Armenian
landmarks might be expected on restaurants in the popular Diaspora
regions such as Glendale, Tehran, Montreal . . . But Riga?
(Latvia is situated in Northern Europe and is one of the three Baltic
states along with Estonia and Lithuania that were occupied by the
Soviet Union in 1940. Latvia regained its independence in 1991. It
has a population of about 2,300,000. The largest national minority
is Russians, about 28 percent).
With an Armenian population of about 2,500 in Riga (3,000 in the
entire country), the capital of Latvia is home to about two dozen
Armenian restaurants – approximately 1 for each 100 Latvian-Armenians.
According to one of the elders of the community, Karlos Shekoyan,
this detail only stresses that “the Armenian community, although not
very large, is very diverse.”
The Armenian community is represented by a khachkar in Riga.
The 84-year-old, a well-known tamada (toast-master) among the Latvian
Armenians, who was brought to Riga by his fate in 1949, says that
the members of the community try to rally around the church.
“We all have families: children, grandchildren, but it is the meetings
in the church that are spiritual communication for us, bringing us
closer to our historical homeland,” says Shekoyan.
The religious organization of the Armenian Apostolic Church called
St. Gregory the Illuminator Church appeared in Riga in 1993. And the
construction of the church began in late 1997 (the church is situated
in 6 Kayusalas Street). Construction is not complete yet, but services
are already being held. The church is being built exclusively on the
donations of the parishioners.
Father Markos (lay name – Hrachya Hovhannisyan) also emphasizes the
role of the church in the life of the community thousands of miles
away from their historical homeland.
“The Church is the core of our unity. It is heroism for such a
small community like ours to purchase such a large territory for
the construction of a church,” says Archimandrite Markos, who came
to Riga in November 2002 and was appointed prior of the St. Gregory
the Illuminator Church.
According to Fr. Markos, Armenians in Latvia can be found in
practically all spheres of activities, but there are especially many
Armenians engaged in arts and culture.
According to him, there were Armenians in Latvia before the
sovietization of the republic in 1940, but they were very few and
disorganized. Armenians, who now live in Latvia, mostly came to this
Baltic state during the Soviet times, after 1946.
The first public organization – Latvian-Armenian Cultural Society –
was founded here in 1988.
The Armenian community of Riga was established on the basis of the
Latvian-Armenian Cultural Society in 2001. This community is a member
of the “Commonwealth” union of public organizations of Latvia’s
national minorities and receives financing from the state.
Its chairman Artur Isakhanov has lived in Riga since 1979. He says
that the community faces lots of challenges in trying to preserve
their identity, including differences within the community itself.
But he says what they have actually achieved inspires him with optimism
for the future.
“It is for the first time in 50 years that only our community here
in the Baltic states has managed to purchase land and build a church
there. It happens very rarely in these parts, practically never,”
says Isakhanov. “We have already got permission for the privatization
of the land and soon this land will belong to Holy Etchmiadzin.”
The church in Riga is the first Armenian church to have been built in
the Baltic States (which include churches in neighboring Lithuania
and Estonia, which, however, unlike the one in Riga were not built
like Armenian churches but were converted into them).
Isakhanov says that it is important for them to see the community
centered around the church. The local Armenians also plan to build
a cultural center and a school near the church.
The Armenian community in Latvia tries to keep abreast with their
compatriots in other Diaspora communities across the world. They
now have their own newspaper, “Ararat” (printed in 2,500 copies),
close ties with the Armenian communities of neighboring Estonia
and Lithuania and participate in many international pan-Armenian
conferences and forums.
According to Isakhanov, there is an Armenian lobby in the Latvian
Parliament and among the Armenian lobbyists are even extreme right-wing
deputies, such as Chairwoman of the Seim (the Latvian Parliament),
Ingrida Udre.
In spring, when Armenians across the world commemorated the 90th
anniversary of the Genocide, the Armenian community in Latvia arranged
a whole series of events, including an exhibition on the Genocide at
the Seim of Latvia.
Even though the Armenian lobby failed to push a declaration on the
genocide through the Latvian legislature this spring (only 15 of
the 100 deputies supported it, including 11 rightist (Latvians) and
four leftists (Russians)), they are determined to initiate the same
declaration next year. Isakhanov says they will continue to work in
this direction in the future.
“The president of Latvia recently met with our ambassador and said to
him: ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t remember the past, but should look into
the future,’ to which he replied: ‘Then why don’t you want to forget
your problems with Russia in the past?'” says Isakhanov, calling it
a policy of double standards.
There is a khachkar in the very center of Riga, placed by the
Armenian community in 1989 in memory of the victims of the massacres
of Armenians and the earthquake in Spitak. In 2001, on the occasion
of the 1700th anniversary of Armenia’s conversion to Christianity,
the khachkar was reconstructed and re-consecrated.
Armenians in Latvia, whether they have a citizen’s passport or don’t,
mostly come together at church meetings and other events organized
by the community.
Anahit Sargsyan recently celebrated her 80th birthday with her
compatriots in the church yard. Originally from Tbilisi, Georgia,
Anahit has lived in Latvia since 1953.
“All my friends here are already dead. I have made new friends here
in the community, which is a family for me. I feel very sad when I
miss a single Sunday church service,” she says.
Preservation of language is another challenge, especially for the
younger generation of Armenians in Latvia.
Tigran Bogoyan, 29, was born and raised in Riga. A graduate of
the Department of Economy at the Latvian University, Tigran runs
an accounting firm. He says he often goes to Yerevan where he has
relatives. He speaks Armenian a little.
“I try to speak Armenian with anyone who speaks Armenian. Although
I was born and lived all my life in Latvia, I feel more at home in
Armenia,” says Tigran.
There is a Sunday school in Riga available to Armenians who want to
learn the language. The school was established in 1989, but according
to Isakhanov, this school needs more attention both in terms of
financing and interest towards it among the members of the community.
Headmistress of Riga’s Armenian Sunday School Elza Mirzoyan says that
besides the Armenian language they also Armenian history and culture.
But she says they have fewer children attending the school than they
would like to see.
“The Armenian language is spoken less and less by children. Their
parents speak the language, but the children do not. Unfortunately,
this tendency is observed throughout the Diaspora,” says Mirzoyan.
The Armenian boys and girls attending the school also participate in
various school competitions among Latvia’s national minorities and
their headmistress says that performing under the Armenian tricolor
they feel that their ancient historical homeland is behind them.
“I am sure that our children will grow to become real patriots of
the Armenian nation,” Mirzoyan concludes.
;AID=1046&CID=1239&IID=1040&lng=eng
From: Baghdasarian

AMBASSADOR FINLEY OUTLINES U.S. POLICIES ON SOUTH CAUCASUS
US Fed News
September 1, 2005 Thursday 4:54 AM EST
WASHINGTON
The U.S. Department of State’s International Information Programs
issued the following press release:
U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE) Julie Finley briefly outlined basic U.S. policies on
several issues relating to the South Caucasus at a meeting of the
OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna, Austria, September 1.
Among the policies she reiterated U.S. support for:
* Free and fair elections in Azerbaijan;
* Support for the territorial integrity of Georgia and “peaceful
settlement of the South Ossetia and Abkhazia conflicts in Georgia;”
and
* The work of the Minsk Group Co-Chairs to facilitate a peaceful,
negotiated settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Finley noted that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had called the
presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan and “encouraged each president
to make the compromises necessary to reach such a settlement.” (See
related article.)
Finley noted that this was her first Permanent Council intervention
as the new U.S. ambassador to the OSCE.
Following is her statement to the Permanent Council:
(begin text)
United States Mission to the OSCE
STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO AMBASSADOR TALVITIE, EU SPECIAL
REPRESENTATIVE FOR THE SOUTH CAUCASUS
As delivered by Ambassador Julie Finley
to the Permanent Council, Vienna
September 1, 2005
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It almost goes without saying that this is my first Permanent Council
intervention as Ambassador of the United States to the OSCE. Allow me
to take a moment to thank you and your colleagues for the very warm
welcome I have received this past ten days. I look forward to meeting
those I have not yet met in person and working together in a spirit
of consultation and cooperation to address the many, many challenges
ahead.
I have long appreciated and valued the important role OSCE plays, and
can play. It is an honor for me to represent my country at this
important time when citizens in so many places are embracing the
principles enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act. In doing so, they
reap the benefits of secure, democratic futures. Still, we have
promises yet to keep, and the OSCE can help to bring bright futures
to places where people still yearn to be free and equal.
I can assure you, my friend President Bush shares my enthusiasm for
what OSCE has done and especially for what OSCE can do.
Mr. Chairman,
The United States warmly welcomes the return of Ambassador Talvitie
to the Permanent Council. We welcome the news that the European Union
extended his mandate for another six-month period, until February
2006. The Ambassador’s extraordinary experiences give him a unique
perspective on this region. We are heartened by his optimistic
report.
The United States is watching the election process in Azerbaijan with
great interest. We appreciate the progress made to date. As we have
stated on many occasions, the United States strongly supports free
and fair elections in Azerbaijan. Secretary of State Rice spoke with
President Aliyev about this just last week. We look for guarantees
that those who campaign will be free of harassment and intimidation.
We look for guarantees that parties and candidates will have equal
access to the media. And we look for guarantees, that in the
post-election period, the voters of Azerbaijan will see the honest
results of their voting – in the cities, towns, and villages.
Mr. Chairman,
We support fully the continuing work of the Minsk Group Co-Chairs to
facilitate a peaceful, negotiated settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict. In her recent phone calls with Armenian President Kocharian
and Azerbaijani President Aliyev, Secretary Rice encouraged each
president to make the compromises necessary to reach such a
settlement. The Minsk Group Co-Chairs have indicated a desire to
brief the full Minsk Group in the near future on the progress of the
negotiation process.
Mr. Chairman,
The United States supports Georgia’s territorial integrity and
continues to support peaceful settlement of the South Ossetia and
Abkhazia conflicts in Georgia. We remain concerned that the situation
in South Ossetia is tense. We call on both sides to fulfill previous
agreements to bring greater stability to the situation on the ground.
We urge both sides to engage in a direct dialogue to restore
confidence and begin discussions toward the resolution of the status
of South Ossetia within Georgia. We believe that economic cooperation
and confidence-building measures have an important role to play and
are encouraged by progress in this regard. We urge the international
community, and particularly the Russian Federation, to lend support
to such efforts.
Thank you.

Armenian parliament approves far-reaching constitution change
Agence France Presse — English
September 1, 2005 Thursday 6:28 PM GMT
YEREVAN Sept 1 — Armenia’s parliament approved constitutional changes
on Thursday that would reduce the president’s powers and increase
the independence of the courts, but which opposition parties see as
a ruse by President Robert Kocharian to stay on in office.
The changes, approved in a second reading and due for a third reading
before going to a referendum, would represent a substantial shake-up
of the former Soviet republic’s political system.
They include giving parliament a greater role in forming governments
and ending the president’s role as head of the government and head
of the Council of Justice.
They would also permit the holding of dual citizenship, a move that
would allow millions of members of the Armenian diaspora living in
the United States and elsewhere to have Armenian citizenship as well
as that of their home country.
Opposition parties refused to vote on Thursday’s proposals, suspecting
that the authorities would use the changing of the constitution as
an opportunity to discount Kocharian’s current second term in office
and let him stand again for election.
“The changes… would allow the president to nominate himself for
a third time,” Aram Sarkisyan, leader of the opposition Democratic
party, said.
Kocharian’s spokesman, Viktor Sogomonyan, denied the charge.
“Neither the current nor a changed constitution would allow the
president to stand for a third term,” Sogomonyan told AFP.
Armenia’s opposition parties had been boycotting parliament since
February last year, accusing Kocharian of rigging his re-election in
2003. But they were persuaded to return for the second reading by the
46-nation Council of Europe, which promotes human rights and democracy.
But they refused to vote on the changes.
In the event of approval in a third reading, the authorities plan a
referendum on the changes in November.